"That's enough ain't it?" said Meg, forgetting her manners again in her distress. "I can't stop here if Sheila don't want me to, and I just can't go back to my old life. I can't, I can't."
"Whatever happens, God will take care of you," said Miss Gregson. "Wait patiently for Him. You need not worry, dear child."
"Mr. Fortescue believes all that. I wish I was sure of it," sighed the girl.
"We seem quite alone in this quiet still garden, Meg, but if we had eyes to see we should find that the place is peopled with angels, and we know that God is here."
Meg was silent, only an occasional sob making her quiver.
"There lived only a few years ago," continued her companion, "a good man of the name of George Macdonald, who used to think a great deal about life and its mysteries. Listen now while I repeat some words of his that always strike me as being specially beautiful—"
"So lies my journey—on into the dark,
Without my will I find myself alive,
And must go forward. Is it God that draws
Magnetic all the souls unto their home,
Travelling, they know not how, but unto God?
It matters little what may come to me
Of outward circumstance, and hunger, thirst,
Social condition, yea, or love or hate;
But what shall I be, fifty summers hence?
My life, my being, all that meaneth me,
Goes darkling forward into something—what?
O God Thou knowest. It is not my care.
If Thou wert less than truth, or less than love,
It were a fearful thing to be and grow
We know not what. My God, take care of me.
Pardon and swathe me in an infinite love
Pervading and inspiring me, Thy child."
"Unfolding the ideal man in me!
Which being greater far than I have grown.
I cannot comprehend. I am Thine, not mine
One day completed unto Thine intent,
I shall be able to discourse with Thee;
For thy idea, gifted with a self,
Must be of one with the mind where it sprang,
And fit to talk with Thee about Thy thoughts.
Lead me, O Father, holding by Thy hand;
I ask not whither, for it must be on.
This road will lead me to the hills I think;
And there I am in safety and at home."
Miss Gregson repeated the words in a soft voice as if afraid of waking the birds and flowers with which they were surrounded. As she ended a rustle in the bushes made her start. But Meg, accustomed to all night sounds, did not stir. Though the thoughts expressed were somewhat beyond her, the words, "My God take care of me," impressed themselves on her mind. She was glad to have heard them and they comforted her.
Miss Gregson shivered as a night hawk cried out in the darkness and a slight breeze swept past them.
"You will come in now, my dear child," she said, as she rose.